Less
by tami3
Summary: When Seimei died and Ritsuka and Soubi started battling, the pain and growth of their relationship manifested in the names of thier enemies: Beloved, Loveless, Breathless, Sleepless, Zero, and Fearless. RxS Chapter 1: Loveless
1. Beloved

Less

_We are all fighters. And we all must sacrifice. We may take different paths in life but we have one obligation to it. We must move ourselves to violence from time to time. We must do our best to secure our happiness, after all. We owe life. For what is happiness?_

_Passion._

_That is…what shakes the human heart._

_What makes the human heart decide._

Prologue- Beloved

_There is nothing to gain and nothing to lose. For us, we have already achieved what is wanted, because we have already suffered and lost. We endured to know that we exist through the other._

_We are beloved._

What was wrong with everyone? The neighbors clung to their gates, blunt nails on chalky metal. They watched for him coming out of the house in the morning to go to school, even when they should be looking after their own children.

"Ritsuka-chan, Ritsuka-chan, why don't you have some of these cookies I made?"

"Don't you have a thicker jacket than that? It's so cold out. You can borrow Yuki-chan's."

"Why, Ritsuka, it looks like your mother forgot to make you a bento today. I expect she was just too busy. I was so silly I accidentally made a few onigiri with crab, and Yuki-chan won't eat those. Would you like them?"

They are so nice Ritsuka always tries to grin in appreciation.

They are so different from his mother that it's too hard.

It hurts to know the difference. Even though they are being kind, Ritsuka's mind immediately goes on ahead, making excuses for his mother, who is not.

The housewives from next door are plump, with small friendly crinkles pinching their eyes as they smile at him. Their busts are like loaves of bread over the ties of their aprons and their hairstyles are rolled short and have discolored bits in them.

Ritsuka's mother is very beautiful; she's the prettiest wife and mother on the block. Her face is smooth like a child's and she has long black hair that flows all the way to her small waist. She's slim and willowy like a high school girl. When she walks she is graceful and brisk, so she always looks so light on her feet when she crosses the room to backhand her child. Misaki does not smile, but at least there are no cracks running from her cheeks into the corners of her mouth when she frowns or cries.

If Ritsuka can't think he has a loving mother, he can at least think he has a beautiful one.

Before he ever gets a chance to say anything back to the women offering surrogate motherhood, Seimei comes out behind him, his backpack slung limply over one broad shoulder and Ritsuka's messenger bag dangling on the heel of his palm like it weighs nothing. Ritsuka devours books. He hauls a fresh supply in his bag from the school library every week—they drag down his side so he has to limp back and forth. But Seimei has all six of them, hardback novels, tucked neatly and casually under an arm.

"Ritsuka, why did you run out of the house so fast?" He calls out pleasantly. "You didn't take any of your things."

He leans close to Ritsuka's ear, ignoring the neighbors who for some reason take on an expression of surprise, as if they didn't think someone handsome, sunny, lithe like the boys' sulky mother, could ever come out of that house. He keeps his voice down, so whispery soft that Ritsuka has to tilt his papery cat ear onto his lip to catch his words.

"Ritsuka, you shouldn't have tried to talk back and then stayed to pick up your books. From now own, just run out if she's like that in the morning. I'll bring out your things for you."

He pauses to sympathetically touch the faint new redness on Ritsuka's neck, which hasn't had a chance to bruise. His fingers are gentle and his voice is low.

"And we'll stop by the drug store on our way to school. If we ice it and then put on some medicine, it should be okay. Don't worry about being late to school, I'll go in with you and talk to your teacher."

Seimei was going to lie. Ritsuka notices he lies a lot, over Ritsuka's tardiness or missing curfew or not being in his bed in the morning. About a cat stuck in a tree or a car accident or someone dropping down dead on the street. But that's fine. He always does it and everyone seems charmed into believing him.

And Seimei would never lie to hurt someone else.

Ritsuka feels crunching in his hand. He looks down and it's Seimei pressing a thousand-yen bill into his small fist.

"S-Seimei!"

"Sh. Mom didn't cook anything for you to take with you and you didn't even get a chance to finish your breakfast before she started shouting. We'll get you some snacks, but buy a school lunch today."

He loves Seimei. He loves the way Seimei looks just like him, only older, so when he peers into his face it's like he's glimpsing a future where he's confident and strong and can make adult decisions like lying to help someone who loves him and he loves in turn. He loves how Seimei can take a matter-of-fact tone with their mother, never raising his voice at her, never crying when she screams that he's hateful and stupid for taking Ritsuka's side.

He loves Seimei so much their mother is just a pesky interloper whose screaming fits get drowned out by their chatter as soon as they are walking alone together to school, their fingers interlocked.

Like he doesn't even need a replacement for her. Like those neighbors can't fill any void that doesn't exist.

"A…ah, Seimei-chan!" they cry out anxiously, unnerved by this warm, beautiful young man who barged in on their gestures that might not be so desperately needed after all. "My, you're getting big…Why don't you and Ritsuka-chan stop by after school for dinner? I know your mother gets too tired to cook sometimes…"

Seimei reaches out and rubs Ritsuka's dark hair, chunky in the front and sleek in the back, something he inherited from their mother.

"Please, call us 'Aoyagi'." he answers. A cold reply delivered with a warm voice. He turns away from them and pushes Ritsuka's face away from them with his hand still on his head.

The message is clear and familiar: don't be so personal with us.

Because we don't need your pity. We are not pitiful. We are not loveless. It should be obvious.

"Let's go, Ritsuka."

"Ok…" Ritsuka agrees. Seimei drops his almost empty messenger bag around him, then adjusts it to drape the right way on his body. Ritsuka puts a hand out for his books but Seimei holds them out of his reach.

"I'll carry them, they're heavy. You can take them when we get to your school."

"Ok. Thank you, Seimei."

Seimei doesn't wait even until they're out of their walkway and the stares of the neighbors. He bends down on one knee, like he's making a promise, and kisses Ritsuka on the forehead. Ritsuka reaches out to take the hand he knows is there.

_For we are beloved._

- - -

_Anyone who does not know he is loved doesn't deserve it._

"Soubi?"

Seimei nonchalantly breaks off their kiss.

"Yes?"

"Kill them."

And he does. The team they were battling are now lying on their sides, the grass around them glistening, sprinkled with blood and vomit. They look dead. Seimei has never made him battle so viciously before, and it shows in their enemies' young battered faces and limbs akimbo. Soubi almost wants to go over and check their pulses. But Seimei beckons him and Soubi follows.

When they battle, Seimei kisses casually, innocently, passionless even when his tongue slips out of his mouth to gently caress Soubi's lips. The quiet after simmers, heavy, until he gives the inevitable command.

Revoke their existence. Negate them.

And today: Kill them.

It's alright. Soubi knows his own strength. He knows he didn't kill them. And the area they chose is quite popular for weekend shoppers, they would be arriving as soon as the sun rose. The other team would get the help they needed. But meanwhile Seimei is tugging on the front of his shirt and pushing their mouths together again.

Chastely.

"Thank you, Soubi. I wasn't sure you'd do it."

"I'd do anything you asked." Soubi smiles. It's like any normal conversation. Seimei tells Soubi he'd glad Soubi obeys him, Soubi says he's glad to obey Seimei. But today, something feels…off…

Soubi watches the back of Seimei's neck, unblemished and pale in the darkness. Of course. Seimei hasn't been restricted in ages.

Seimei is an uncommonly good mood. He's paranoid, constantly wiping his hands and jerking away from people who move too close to him too quickly. But he's actually got a skip to his step and humming as if he doesn't mind that his mother will launch herself into him as soon as he walks through the door.

"Soubi."

"Yes?"

Seimei's eyes over his unmarked shoulder, playful and lazy, are frightening.

"How did you lose your ears?"

Soubi stops dead in his tracks. Seimei halts with him, the subtle twist of his body turning him around to face his fighter.

Seimei plays these games sometimes. Not the right kind, the ones they always play. The ones that make things feel off, something that Seimei knows. Soubi knows he does it on purpose, and…he doesn't know why.

"Don't be so quiet. You said you'd do anything for me, right?" Seimei steps up to him. He's tall, but not as tall as Soubi, and the way he tilts his chin up makes it feel like a stare-down. "I want you to tell me."

Soubi says nothing.

Seimei slides up to him, clasping his hands together at Soubi's lower back, holding his waist.

"So there really is something you won't do for me."

Still nothing.

"Then…I want you to take my ears from me."

"Seimei!"

Seimei laughs, letting him go and resuming walking.

"I'm kidding," he says calmly. "I like having my ears. People who lose them…it's like they're always showing off a half-exposed secret that makes you want to be nosy and ask questions. It's just not cute."

"Seimei…"

Seimei doesn't even look back.

"What does it matter if we both aren't cute?" he says out loud, clear and echoing in the empty streets. "I still love you and you still love me. We're 'Beloved'."

Soubi loves Seimei, and Seimei loves him. That's the truth. That's the rule between a sacrifice and his fighter. There is no point doubting certainty, doubting a law. Seimei locked with him from the moment they met.

Soubi deciphers the secrets encrypted in Seimei's heart, their strength. The force of it was enough to bring Seimei to his knees the first few times. But afterwards, when Soubi helped him up again, Seimei would pull him close and whisper how happy he was. Giving a little of himself up, knowing the person who would keep it and never lose it—that made him so happy. As if, even though he hadn't been lonely before, he now knows he never will be.

Soubi is what defines me, he'd murmured. I like that.

Their had name appeared at the same time. Soubi's is on his neck, the scars scoring his breastbone into the crude likeness of a beautiful word, "beloved". He'd opened his shirt to show Seimei and Seimei had placed his fingertips to it, as if claiming Soubi, as if blessing what allowed him to claim Soubi.The barbed-wire vines warp around like they're strangling him, but Soubi and Seimei both know it's more like a collar. Telling you where and to whom you belonged.

But Seimei has never showed him where his name is. It doesn't show anywhere obvious, and it doesn't match Soubi's, at least in where it is. And Soubi has never felt that it's right to ask him, something that important. Seimei is the sacrifice. It's supposed to be Soubi's power, all fighters' power, to comprehend his sacrifice. He doubts that there was ever a fighter who had to question his sacrifice's intentions. No, he hasn't even thought about Seimei's motives once. Fighters do not wonder about their sacrifice's motives because that is irrelevant.

There is only one intention of the sacrifice that fighters have to be concerned with, and it's an intention they can be sure of. It is that their sacrifice loves them. A fighter that suspects anything else isn't a fighter at all.

Seimei loves him, that is Soubi's one and only reality.

It has to be.

"Soubi, I was kidding before, but you really must never disobey my orders. Not even when I'm dead."

But sometimes…sometimes things don't feel right.

_I am…your beloved, aren't I?_

- - -

Author's Notes:

_The top is an excerpt from "Earthian," the other Yun Kouga series that was translated into English. It's quite good after the first book, I highly recommend it._

_This will be a six(?) part series that analyzes the stages of Ritsuka and Soubi's relationship. I noticed that they progress on parallel with the introduction of new characters. In a sense, the enemy teams "introduce" a new difficulty, and by the time they are defeated Ritsuka and Soubi also overcome the issue the team was named for. I will go up to "Fearless" who appear in volume 5 for now, but if there are more teams after I will add more chapters. _

_Even before Ritsuka and Soubi met each other, their central relationships were both focused on Seimei. And so they are indirectly related through him. "Beloved" is the first mentioned name, so I used it to describe prior to when they meet and are both still fixated on Seimei. I tried to use two scenarios that epitomized the interactions each had with Seimei; Ritsuka finding meaning in life outside of abuse, and Soubi fulfilling his sense of identity by battle with his partner. Because of Seimei, both felt "Beloved". And by the official start of this fic, Chapter 1, he will have left them both "Loveless"._


	2. Loveless

Less

_We are all fighters. And we all must sacrifice. We may take different paths in life but we have one obligation to it. We must move ourselves to violence from time to time. We must do our best to secure our happiness, after all. We owe life. For what is happiness?_

_Passion._

_That is…what shakes the human heart._

_What makes the human heart decide._

Chapter 1: Loveless

_To be loveless is truly something horrible. It is a horrible word._

_For it implies a previous awareness of what the word means. It implies tragedy. _

_It implies that someone loved you, but left you anyways._

Ritsuka feels cold in his own bed.

It's unpleasant, feeling a chill where you're supposed to be so comfortable your body doesn't mind lying prone, stationary, for a third of each day. But it's always like that now.

The mattress springs are too firm on his back with only his weight to press them down. The surpluses of blanket on either side of him are vacant pockets of space he doesn't like. He has a really big pillow that gives off the sterile smell of detergent instead of something warm and a little musty, like another living person's hair.

Ritsuka can't get used to not sleeping next to Seimei.

Even though they each had their own rooms, Ritsuka never thought of them as separate possessions. Their bathroom in Ritsuka's room. Their computer in Seimei's. Their beds.

His now. Their father, now only his father, had said Ritsuka could have both rooms. Why not? The adults of the family have their own master bedroom, although Misaki spends all her time moping alone in it because Ritsuka's father is always gone on business trips. And even though Ritsuka isn't supposed to know, just like isn't supposed to know a lot of things, Seimei had told him anyways.

Even when Ritsuka's father isn't out of town he often takes out a hotel room for himself after leaving the office, so he won't have to come home and face his finicky wife.

Or for that matter, his sons. One is always pitiful in his bandages. The other has impeccable manners for politely ignoring someone he doesn't like.

So Ritsuka doesn't even know how his stranger of a father was able to stay long enough in the house to set up Seimei's computer Ritsuka's room, remove books from Ritsuka's overflowing shelves, and then dump them in Seimei's cleared ones. All without him noticing.

Because Ritsuka had told him no. He hadn't wanted Seimei's things.

But Ritsuka had said "no" a lot soon after Seimei's death. Not just to little questions that that bothered him, like over Seimei's room. No to what anyone said about, did he want something? Would he like to talk? Was he ok?

For the first time, even after everything else, Ritsuka had been angry. It was too much to ask of him. He knew he didn't have much compared to other people. Everything from his mother to his classmates to his strange amnesia were slowly vanishing away his life. He'd dealt with that.

But he wouldn't let Seimei go. Seimei was the only thing he wouldn't give up.

So for that first week, Ritsuka had been almost in trance. He hadn't cried. He'd just snapped it over and over again like a mad cat to anyone who said a word to him. No. No. No. He'd deny it. He'd deny anything about it.

So his father decided Ritsuka didn't mean anything by it anymore. It was just a bad habit, being difficult at an already difficult time. He had stopped hearing even the superficial meaning of the word and had gone ahead with the room.

As for Misaki, that amount of "no's" from her younger child should have made her slap him. But after Seimei had died, she hadn't even been able to give Ritsuka that. She had cried and cried and done nothing. During that time Ritsuka hadn't even existed for her anymore, not as a figure in the corner she was nervous around or as frustrating rival for Seimei's attention or as something to bully when she felt the need to bully.

The only thing she had was understanding that Seimei didn't exist anymore.

For some time, it took away everything else from her, even that sickness that made her crazy and sad. She was only sad.

So many things had gone missing when Seimei left.

He'd only left Ritsuka his room and his things.

Ritsuka feels awkward between his own sheets, like there's something weird about the vastness of his bed and the clean coldness of his cushions that he thinks will go away at any moment. The apprehension of it keeps him up at night and miss sleep. Seimei's textbooks and video games are now technically his, but though he flips through them and looks at the sprites on screen, he feels as if he's waiting for a guide to sit down next to him and explain. Even when he prays at the shrine, like he's supposed feel more peaceful about what happened, he never does.

It's very annoying.

It' feeling as if someone is constantly owed to him.

Things in negative. That is what Seimei gave Ritsuka.

Not nothing. Worse than nothing.

Oh, and the need to go to a new school.

Ritsuka groggily hefts himself out of bed (he didn't get a good night's rest with that sort of vague disorientation) and pulls on a colored sweater and pants made out of denim.

No more uniform code either. Or Osamu, even, but he doesn't really care, although he knows he should. Missing regret.

All his books are ready. Ritsuka stacked them on the table last night so he'd be able to tilt them in his bag in the morning. Seimei had never had to do that for him. But they'll be heavy, with him walking to school.

Ritsuka doesn't want to go to school. He never really did, even though he's good at it. He just took Seimei's hand in the morning and let it take him to the building, even though all he would do was wait through it so Seimei could take him home when it was done. Now he'll have pay attention, really pay attention, because there'll be nothing good before it and nothing good after and he might as well. He'll be bored, really bored, doing something really boring with no reward.

Ritsuka looks out the window. It's a nice autumn day. Colored leaves and brisk, strong sunlight that will feel good because the cool air will make its radiance gentle on the skin. But the wind can still be too much so Ritsuka reaches under his bed and pulls out a blue jacket. He almost studies it to see whether it might be a hand-me-down from Seimei, but stops himself. He doesn't know and it's not like there's anyone left to know.

He just pulls it on and walks out the door, dragging his bag along on the floor.

Ritsuka wonders if he'll feel this way all his life, expecting someone and something that will never come.

_Being loveless is an extreme. You must choose for it to take away everything else._

_---_

_You left me._

_You gave me everything, including everything else you wanted to leave, and left me._

_It was so easy for you to give me everything. It was so easy for you to take the only thing that mattered._

Soubi knows Seimei gave up on him.

The key, the lessons about Ritsuka and their home life, the gradual lessening of physical contact that had tempted Soubi to be the initiator.

Seimei had done it to abandon him.

He'd always been so careful. The last time Soubi had seen him was when he had sat down at the edge of Soubi's bed, smiling a little, knowing what that meant between college students and not caring. His fingers were long and slim, something Soubi had known for a long time because he liked to watch them gracefully mash the buttons on the controller during a tough spot of a game.

They'd held out a multicolored designer key, splashy from many butterflies.

That had been the end.

Soubi doesn't remember what else at all. He doesn't think he had a spectacular reaction to his sacrifice giving him the final signal, that key, to say they ceased to mean anything to each other.

Seimei had been very, very good. He'd done it so it was like he was fading from Soubi's life, one shade lighter at a time, so Soubi wouldn't feel anything at all when it really happened. And it might have been like that.

Because the next thing Soubi had been aware of after that was that Seimei wasn't there anymore. There'd just been the crinkling of sheets where he had sat, the metal of the key already warmed in Soubi's fist. Or had it been warm from Seimei's hand? Maybe it had been their heat, Soubi's and Seimei's mixing in that metal, and Seimei would never be able to figure it out and he'd have to let the key go and let it become cold sometime.

Why did he forget?

It felt like at that moment Soubi's heart had been a chalkboard, full of words and lessons Seimei had written there, and then something had wiped it all away into a cloud of dust. A big blur on an empty, dirty blank. The way it had seemed, if he tried to rewrite what Seimei had instructed him in, he'd only get it a little wrong and a little uglier, all against a smudged background that made it hard to a picture riddled with errors in the first place.

So Soubi doesn't even try.

But he does recall that he didn't make his bed that day. He wasn't sure what he'd been doing, keeping the imprint of Seimei's body in his house. After all, he hadn't bothered to do anything like stand around pointlessly, trying to memorize how Seimei's carefree hunching on the edge of his mattress had looked like. He hadn't wistfully wished that Seimei had given him the chance to warm away the slight blueness of his lips before he headed back into the cold snap.

And he hadn't wasted time getting out those words he has never said himself, a moment of feeling stupid and desperate which would have been worth it because he no longer had to be strong as a fighter, the games were over for good, and he could finally say "I love you" even as Seimei walked out the door.

Seimei had been good about letting Soubi go and Soubi had been good about letting him.

As soon as his catatonic moment was over Soubi had busied himself thinking about Ritsuka like Seimei had told him to.

But perhaps once the sacrifice was gone, a fighter's skill at following his orders waned, even if you were as good as "Beloved". Now Soubi always thinks about Ritsuka, preparing himself to meet the child by turning over in his mind all that Seimei had said about him. It was a lot. They had had a difficult family situation and Seimei had outlined it painstakingly, from the foods Misaki used as bait to draw out Ritsuka's real self to Ritsuka's size of shoe.

To be honest, Soubi can't focus very well.

He will like Ritsuka. Seimei had loved him and had decided it would be convenient to have Soubi love him instead. Seimei's words always come true so Soubi will do it. Ritsuka is supposed to have big cool eyes and a sincere sweetness and long ropy tail. Soubi is looking forward to seeing him for the first time.

Even if he is younger, worse than even Seimei who was a high school student.

Even if Ritsuka's emotions often get the better of him.

He yells and runs and hisses when he is upset, which isn't all that hard to do. It's something Seimei never did even though he hated people, and people were always around him because he was a charming, beautiful boy.

Seimei had known himself. It wasn't something he'd been able to reassure Soubi about when it came to Ritsuka, who is so mixed up that even Soubi will have a hard to time syncing with him. Soubi is a fighter that is so good that he'd taken Seimei's will without discomfort the first time they'd battled, though that usually feels intrusive for a fighter and makes him temporarily skittish.

Seimei's heart was more or less settled, calm, unfettered, and smooth like glass. There was nothing painful about taking it in.

Ritsuka's will make Soubi bleed at the neck when they battle.

Loveless will hurt Beloved's name, the exact opposite, make it gush in protest with every word Soubi speaks because he must struggle to integrate Seimei's other throwaway with himself, as per Seimei's command.

Loveless will hurt himself.

His will resist having to be with this stranger trying to being with him, like two unfitting puzzle pieces being ground together forcefully at the wrong places, distorting their natural shapes, insisting and insisting until they stick anyways but will always look a little wrong.

He will not even know why.

He will go haywire trying to figure out why his insides are churning beyond reason when Soubi is already the closest thing he will have to Seimei, whom he had really loved. He will hurt as Soubi hurts, the both of them thrown haphazardly together and colliding painfully

One Beloved and one Loveless, both awkwardly fumbling with names that repel the other.

Seimei had known and hadn't cared.

He'd forced them on each other anyways.

Seimei was amazing. He had loved them both. He'd always done amazing things, such as making sure Soubi would never understand him again, his own fighter.

If he wanted to do something amazing again by bringing together an unnatural team, Soubi will gladly do it for him.

In the end, it was the same as always, even if Seimei was gone, for all his gentle kisses and confident orders like he'd always be around to give them to Soubi and even the 'I love you' s that had flowed from him without the slightest unease.

It hadn't been wrong.

Seimei had chosen it.

Soubi takes in another lungful of smoke as he watches the school's gate. Seimei had told him exactly what to do. Where to wait, what to look for, how to gently nudge Ritsuka into doing whatever he asked by telling him that he had known his big brother, who is supposed to be dead. The dying leaves smell good, but he hopes it's not too cold out for a sixth-grader to be out.

It's going to take some time for them to get to trust each other after what Seimei did to them.

_Did you think I would remain loveless?_

_---_

_AN: Urrggghh hard to write! Very hard! I'll have to take my time with this one. Sorry. Please help me catch any grammar and spelling mistakes. R+R_

_EDIT: Oh no!! I made some huge mistakes!_ _The Aoyagis MOVED after Seimei's death and Seimei never told Soubi much about Ritsuka! Please forgive these errors..since my greatest priority with this fic is emotional impact, I think I'll leave it for now...Still, I'm very sorry. I'm in the process of rereading the manga so I'll be more careful with the future chapters._


End file.
